Americas Health Rankings also does a great job in providing statistics for each of the states. Smoking trends by State have some interesting aspects not quickly seen by observing the data.

The Best and Worst States 2009 Smokers by State map highlights high smoking and low smoking states. It is listed below:

State Smoking Population Map

From the map it is readily apparent that the mid west and southern states have the strongest affinity for smoking.

The Best State for Non-Smokers, i.e. lowest smoking population, is Utah. Only 9.3% of the Utah population smokes. Additional Top States for Non-Smokers are California, New Jersey, Maryland and Hawaii.

The Best State for Smokers, i.e. the highest smoking population, is West Virginia with 26.5% of its population smokers. Over one in four people over 18 smoke in West Virginia. Additional Top States for Smokers are Indiana, Kentucky, Missouri and Oklahoma. Nevada had the highest smoking population in 1990 at 35.7% according to Americas Health. Nevada’s smoking population has since declined to 22.1%, a dramatic decline.

The entire 2009 list of Smokers by State is published below.

The populations of tobacco producing states are above average smokers. It seems logical. If a state produces lots of tobacco, its population is more likely to smoke. The chart of Top Producing Tobacco States supports this contention. North Carolina has the most tobacco acreage by far and ranks as the 14th highest smoking state. Kentucky, the 2nd largest tobacco producer, ranks 3 in the nation for highest per cent of its population being smokers. Virginia and Connecticut appear to be outliers. Virginia is the third largest producer yet its population ranks 40th in the nation for smoking. Connecticut is the 9th largest producer of tobacco yet its smoking population is 44th or ranked 7th lowest state for smokers. All the other Top Tobacco Producing States have above average smoking populations.

The Top Ten Tobacco Producing States are listed below along with their Smoker Rank.

Top Ten Tobacco Producing States

List of Smoking Population by State

If you consider smoking or non-smoking an important aspect of lifestyle, this info may help you find a state that fits your needs. It might help you determine your Best State to Live.

It has been one year since President Obama took office and announced a stimulus bill that was to improve jobs.The data suggests that the job market continued to deteriorate this past year. Unemployment is up to 10% from 7.4%. Job Openings are down 5.48%

Job Openings, as measured on careerbuilder.com, have not improved from one year ago. Nationwide, job openings at January 31, 2010 were 5.48% lower than January 29, 2009. Total job openings stand at 222,189 as compared to 235,059 last year, a decrease of 12,870. 37 States have lower job openings as compared to last year.

The Best State for Job Openings is Indiana as measured by growth. Indiana had the largest gain in job openings, 887, up 17.4% from a year ago. Best States for Jobs also were Kentucky, Ohio and Tennessee. Florida and Ohio were the best large states for job openings. They were the only 2 states of the Top Ten Employment States to show increases in openings. 13 States had increases in job openings from a year ago.

The Worst State for Jobs was California. It has 3,667 less job openings from a year ago, a decrease of 14.18%. California also has the fourth worst employment rate in the nation. Unemployment in California is now at 12.4%, up 3.7% from a year ago. California is struggling on many fronts and an increasing jobless population will not help it turn around. For more on California see California Jobs Shrinking

Additional Worst States for Jobs are Texas, Illinois,Massachusetts and Arizona. They each had large job opening losses and double digit declines in percentage terms.

Another measure of job openings, the Conference Board’s Help Wanted On-Line Data Series is also indicating year over year decreases in job openings. The Conference Board Data for 2009 annual average job openings stands at 3,357,000, 1.1million below the 4,481,000 annual average for 2008. More importantly their average job opening number for 2009 is 2.4 million below the 2007 average job opening number. These are not good numbers. On an encouraging note,the Conference Board reported positive improvement in job openings in New York, Washington, Connecticut, Virginia, North Carolina, Georgia, Delaware and New Jersey.

All 50 states saw their unemployment rates increase in 2009. See Unemployment by State 2009 for the entire 2009 list and unemployment changes from a year ago. Job openings must increase significantly nationwide if unemployment is to improve to acceptable levels. It is going to take some time for this to occur.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics released state unemployment for December 2009 today. Every state in the U.S. saw its unemployment rate rise in 2009.

The Best State for Jobs and Employment in 2009 was North Dakota. It had the lowest unemployment rate in the nation at 4.4%. Its unemployment rate increased by 1.1% in 2009. South Dakota, Nebraska, Iowa, Oklahoma and Kansas were also Top States for Jobs and Employment.
The Worst State for Jobs and Employment in 2009 was Michigan. Its unemployment ended the year at 14.6%, an increase of 4.4% in 2009. 21 states and D.C. saw their unemployment ranks increase by 3% or more in 2009. 2009 was a very bad year for those seeking employment. Nevada, Rhode Island, South Carolina, California and D.C. all were Worst States for Jobs and Unemployment in 2009. They all have unemployment rates of 12% or higher.

Minnesota and North Dakota had the smallest unemployment increases in 2009 with increases of only 0.8%. The Worst States forUnemployment Increases were West Virginia and Nevada which had increases of 4.6% in unemployment. The list of Best and Worst States for Jobs and Employment is below. It is presented from best to worst based on year over year changes. Politically, these are very poor numbers for the Obama administration. With the large health care bill off the table for now, let’s hope businesses will become a little more willing to hire in 2010.

Their piece reinforces the general messages of this site, namely that there are Best and Worst States in the U.S. to live, create wealth and grow a business. The story makes a case for common sense state policies of low taxes and favorable business regulatory climate. In the piece Moore and Laffer point out that the no income tax states have created “89% more jobs and had 32% faster personal income growth than their high-tax counterparts.” In other words, successful people and businesses go to the more favorable tax and regulatory environments.

We have long advocated state governments to adopt more business and citizen friendly policy. Laffer and Moore bring this issue to the forefront today with their well-written piece. I hope state governors and legislators also read it and take action.

For those of you interested the nine no income tax states in the U.S. are Texas, Nevada, New Hampshire, Florida, South Dakota, Wyoming, Washington, Alaska and Tennessee. New Hampshire and Tennessee do tax interest and dividends however.

Insurance.com publishes a monthly listing of car insurance rates. We thought you might like to see March results.

We also thought it might be interesting to see if safe drivers as measured by the annual GMAC driver safety study had a measurable benefit in insurance rates.

The Best State for Car Insurance is Vermont with an estimated annual premium of $1,304. It ranks 18 in the GMAC Safe Driver Study. The 4 other Best States for Car Insurance, i.e. the lowest premiums, are Ohio, Iowa, Wisconsin and Idaho. The safest state of the top 5 according to GMAC is Idaho with a safe driver rank of 4. The safest driver state, Kansas, ranks 22 in car insurance premiums.

The Worst State for Car Insurance,( we put DC in a world of its own), is Louisiana with a premium of $2617 more than double that of Vermont!!! It also ranks 44 on the GMAC Safe Driver Study. New Jersey the Worst State for Safe Driving in the US has one of the highest car insurance rates rate just below Louisiana. Rounding out the WorstStates for Car Insurance are Delaware, Rhode Island and Pennsylvania. All these state rate below average in the GMAC study.

Of the popular retirement states Tennessee is best rated for low premiums at 11. Arizona at 25 and Florida at 36 are more middle of the pack

Car Insurance rates have dropped over the last 6 months yet are still higher than a year ago. From a look of the list it appears that drivers who know the rules of the road benefit from safer roads and lower car insurance premiums. It may be beneficial for insurance companies to offer discounts to drivers who take a car exam annually that demonstrates they know the rules of the road.

The Tax Foundation recently released their 2009 Tax Freedom Day Study. It measures how many days the average worker must work to pay taxes. There is a wide disparity among states. The tax burden you bear can significantly impact your quality of life.

The Best State for Tax Freedom is Alaska where it takes 82 days almost 25% of the year just to pay taxes. Louisiana, Mississippi, South Dakota, North Dakota and West Virginia are also rated Best States for Tax Freedom. If you are not retired, these states would be considered as candidates for Best States to Work.

The Worst State for Tax Freedom is Connecticut where it takes 120 days or until April 30 to pay taxes. If you live in Connecticut 1/3 of your time every year goes to pay taxes to the Federal, State and Local governments. That is almost 50% more days than Alaska. New Jersey, New York, California and Maryland are also rated Worst States for Tax Freedom.

According to the Tax Foundation study, five major categories of tax dominate the tax burden. Individual income taxes, both federal and state, require 38 days’ work. Payroll taxes take another 27 days’ work. Sales and excise taxes, mostly state and local, take 15 days to pay off. Corporate income taxes take 6 days, and property taxes take 12. Americans will log 4 more days to pay other miscellaneous taxes, most notably including motor vehicle license taxes and severance taxes, and about 1 day for estate taxes.

What state you live in is very important in determining your lifestyle as higher cost of living states tend to have higher tax burdens. Lower disposable income is the result. Many states are also increasing many taxes due to economic conditions which will increase tax burdens. Noteworthy examples are the proposed increases in New York and California that will make these heavily burdened states more undesirable to live. If you are not retired, New York and California would have to be considered as 2 of the Worst States to Work.

The February 2009 State Unemployment numbers were released this past week and they were not pretty. Every state in the U.S. saw its unemployment rate increase.

Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) also released March Unemployment, along with Feb state data, and the nationwide unemployment rate increased again to 8.5% nationwide. It was 8.1% in February.

Seven States had unemployment above 10% in February. Michigan was the Worst State for Jobs with a whopping 12% unemployment number. South Carolina, Oregon, North Carolina, California Rhode Island and Nevada also qualify as Worst States for Employment as the 6 other states with unemployment above 10% .

The Best State for Jobs based on a low 3.9% unemployment is Wyoming. 4 other states qualify as Best States forEmployment with rates still below 5%. They are: Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota and Iowa.

Some of the state year on year changes are quite large. Unemployment increased by over 100% from last year in Hawaii and Oregon for example. Of the large states, Texas is holding up the best with unemployment of only 6.2% in February which was below the U.S. Feb average of 8.1%.

State data is released with a one month lag so expect March state unemployment to get even worse as unemployment increased nationwide in March by .4%.

The Missouri Economic Research and Information Center (MERIC) has some valuable information on the the cost of living for each State.

The Best States for Cost of Living are Tennessee, Oklahoma, Nebraska, Missouri and Arkansas.

The Worst States for Costof Living are Hawaii, DC, California, NewJersey and Alaska.

Map below for cost of living is courtesy of MERIC.

The Best States for Housing Costs are Oklahoma, Tennessee, SouthDakota, Texas and Missouri.

The Worst States for Housing Costs are Hawaii, DC, California, Maryland and New Jersey.

If you are looking for the Best State to Retire, the cost of living is a very important consideration. If you want to stretch your dollar, look to the Southeast and Midwest and stay away from the North East. Hope this helps.

This question was raised in prior posts.
I thought you might find these 2 charts interesting. Best and Worst States For Education Spending ranks all states by spending and shows the SAT Score Rank of its students. I also have attached a Chart from Heritage that shows that the best funded cities do not have the highest graduation rates.

The more money spent clearly does not show up in higher SAT scores or graduation rates.

New Jersey spends the most money. Its SAT score rank is 33 . New York, at 2nd on the money spend, ranks 44th on SAT scores. The “Worst” State for Education Spending is Utah yet its students rank 20th on the SAT score list above NY and New Jersey. Utah spends about 1/3 the dollars of NY and New Jersey. Its students do better than all of the Top 10 spenders on Education. Utah may be considered a Best State for Education considering its bang for the dollar.
Arizona is the next lowest spend state yet ranks 29th on the SAT Scores list. Arizona students perform better than the top 6 spenders. Mesa, AZ which is at the bottom of the Heritage list of city spends has a graduation rate of 77.1%. Mesa spends only 40% of Boston which has a much lower graduation rate of 57%.

Clearly money is not the only factor that impacts educational performance. You may want to consider carefully your state’s approach to education. It appears more dollars on education does not lead to better results. Tell your political leaders you want accountability for results not just money spent.

State

Ed Spend

SAT Rank

1

New Jersey

15,033

36

2

New York

14,593

44

3

DC

14,214

50

4

Connecticut

13,059

31

5

Vermont

12,749

30

6

Rhode Island

12,425

41

7

Massachusetts

12,398

29

8

Delaware

11,619

43

9

Alaska

11,551

33

10

Maine

11,014

51

11

Pennsylvania

10,900

45

12

Wyoming

10,852

16

13

Maryland

10,682

37

14

New Hampshire

10,405

26

15

Wisconsin

10,388

6

16

Michigan

9,947

13

17

Ohio

9,936

23

18

West Virginia

9,609

32

19

Hawaii

9,581

48

20

Indiana

9,498

38

21

Illinois

9,473

2

22

Virginia

9,463

34

23

Nebraska

9,365

9

24

Minnesota

9,284

3

25

Montana

8,661

22

26

Oregon

8,595

27

27

Georgia

8,589

46

28

Iowa

8,479

1

29

Kansas

8,440

7

30

California

8,418

35

31

Missouri

8,368

4

32

New Mexico

8,342

21

33

North Dakota

8,337

7

34

Colorado

8,334

18

35

Washington

8,218

25

36

Louisiana

8,167

14

37

Arkansas

8,156

11

38

South Carolina

8,039

49

39

South Dakota

7,949

5

40

Texas

7,716

42

41

Florida

7,683

47

42

Kentucky

7,595

15

43

Alabama

7,532

19

44

North Carolina

7,352

41

45

Tennessee

7,295

10

46

Nevada

7,246

41

47

Oklahoma

7,039

12

48

Mississippi

6,973

17

49

Idaho

6,729

24

50

Arizona

6,586

29

51

Utah

5,555

20

Sources: Dept of Education. Spending not regionally adjusted. College Board.

Smoking by State, Utah has least Smokers, Kentucky Most

Why do people smoke more in one state versus another? Does the number of smokers in a state affect lifestyle?

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention publishes great statistics on many aspects of health. The smoking list is compliled by them and was completed in 2007.

Utah is the Best State for Non Smokers with only 11.7% of its population using cigarettes. Kentucky is the Worst State with 28.3% of its population smoking. California, Connecticut, Massachusetts and Minnesota round out the top 5 Best States. West Virginia, Oklahoma, Missouri and Tennessee are the next WorstStates following Kentucky for Non Smokers.

It is well known that smoking increases health care costs. You may want to live in a state with low smoking rates. Then again if you are a smoker this list will help you find lots of company to light up with.

Best and Worst States for Non Smokers(% of cigarette smokers)
Utah 11.7